The Inspirator: Fond farewells to ‘Timmy The Brit’ McCarthy
CORK FOLK FESTIVAL FOUNDER IS RENOWNED AS A PRESERVER AND TEACHER OF NUMEROUS TRADITIONAL IRISH SET DANCES
MID-CORK man and legendary set dance teacher Timmy ‘ The Brit’ McCarthy (73) was an inspiration to so many people throughout his life, not just in Cork but throughout the world, mourners at his cremation service in Ringaskiddy were told at the weekend
Timmy’s close friend Dave McMahon paid tribute to his mentor when he recalled at the service how he first met him at a set dance workshop in Landshut in Bavaria in 1996 when, with an accordion on his lap, he was calling out the Blue Bonnet Polka to encourage the dancers:
‘I have a bonnet trimmed with blue. Do I wear it? Yes I do. When do I wear it? When I can, going to the ball with my young man. My young man is gone to sea, when he comes back he’ll marry me. Tip to the heel, tip to the toe, that’s the way the polka go.’
“Just as Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Terminator, Timmy was ‘ The Inspirator’, the driving force behind so many dreams that were made reality through him,” Dave told the hundreds of mourners who thronged the Island Crematorium to pay their respects.
In a simple but heartfelt eulogy he spoke about the loss felt by Timmy’s partner, Rhona, and his adult children Tony, Susan and Niamh and their mother, Clair. “Timmy told me many times the three women he loved most were his mother, Kitty, his wife, Clair and his partner, Rhona – he’s with his mum now, dancing a polka set with Dan O’Connell, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Princess Diana, JFK and Jacqueline Onassis,” said Dave to loud laughter.
“There are three people here today who don’t remember the first time they met Timmy – they are Tony, Susan and Niamh ... they have lost not just a great friend, they have lost their flesh and blood and I just want to repeat Timmy’s mantra to them: ‘ love, keep positive and hate negativity’.”
Born in London to Cork parents, Kitty from Fair Hill and Ernest from Blackpool, Timmy retained his accent when he moved to Leeside in the 1960s to work as a butcher, earning him the nickname ‘ Timmy The Brit’ as he became an unlikely champion of the set dancing of Cork and Kerry.
As he told in a newspaper interview earlier this year, he was already involved with the Cork Folk Festival when he took a trip to Dan O’Connell’s pub in Knocknagree and it was a journey that was to lead him from Europe to America and Australia to teach people the joy of sets.
“I went down to Dan O’Connell’s pub one day in Knocknagree. A woman called Eily Buckley saw me sitting down and she took me up and threw me round the floor. I didn’t know what the hell had happened to me, but that was the Sliabh Luachra set, and it changed my life,” he said.
“I never set out to teach set dancing but people asked me to teach. I had a passion for the music of Sliabh Luachra, Corca Dhuibhne, Múscraí, and the dances that went with it,” said Timmy who settled with Rhona at Direenauling in Baile Mhuirne, just shy of the county bounds.
And it was at the Mills Inn in Baile Mhuirne on Friday night that Timmy had his wish for a traditional Irish wake met by owner Don O’Leary, who set aside a room where he lay in a wicker coffin beside a single red rose and a poster for the Cork Folk Festival which he founded almost 40 years ago.
Among those to pay tribute to him was his successor as Cork Folk Festival organiser, William ‘Hammy’ Hammond, who said that Timmy had left a rich legacy in terms of the traditional dances that he had saved from extinction and the musical heritage of the folk festival.
“His legacy is reviving and bringing to prominence about 14 traditional Irish sets. Some of them were definitely gone and Timmy and Dan O’Connell, and others helped to revive those while he also leaves a legacy in the founding of the folk festival, which has continued as vibrant festival,” said Hammy.
As mourners sympathised with Timmy’s grieving loved ones, they reminisced and told stories about his legendary enthusiasm for Irish music and culture while uileann piper Dan O’Callaghan, Jerry McCarth on the box and Mike Galvin on the guitar played a selection of traditional airs.
Among the many to pay their respects in Baile Mhuirne were local Sinn Fein MEP and presidential candidate Liadh Ni Riada from Cuil Aodha and local Fianna Fail TD Aindrias Moynihan from Cill na Martra, as well as Jim Walsh of the Cork Folk Festival and former Labour senator Brendan Ryan.
Both Jim and Brendan also came to the Island Crematorium on Saturday as did well known folk singer, ballad writer and music historian Jimmy Crowley as well as Hammy Hammond and Timmy’s friend of 40 years, Peadar O Riada and the members of Cor Cuil Aodha.
Mourners watched as family and friends shouldered Timmy’s wicker coffin into the crematorium overlooking Cork Harbour to the strains of some Breton airs played by musicians Youenn Peron on the Breton bagpipes, the binioù kozh, and Gwenola Larivain on the oboe-like bombard.
Tony acted as Fear an Tí and after Dave Mahon’s tribute and a humorous ballad about Timmy’s travails trying to source poitin in the woods near Cuil Aodha and an encounter with a member of the local constabulary, it was the turn of Tony, Susan and Niamh to honour their father.
Rising from their seats in front of Timmy’s remains, they joined with Hammy Hammond, Linda Quinlan, Ted O’Connell, Geraldine Thomas and John Herbert to dance a polka as a tribute to the man who had a missionary like zeal to spread the joy of set dancing.
The crematorium, once a Royal Navy magazine store on Rocky Island, soon was heaving as the sounds of the music echoed down from the high vaulted ceiling and the rhythm of the dancers reverberated around the usually reverential space in a fittingly physical and energetic eulogy.
And then it was time to bid farewell as Cor Cuil Aodha, under the leadership of Peadar O Riada, broke into their anthemic rendition of Sean Clarach MacDomhnaill’s Jacobite lament, ‘Mo Ghile Mear’ with various members of the choir taking turns to sing lead on each verse.
But the choir had barely reached the chorus first time round when the entire congregation of mourners in the crematorium rose to their feet to sing along in a poignant yet rousing tribute to the man described earlier by Dave McMahon as simply ‘ The Inspirator’.
I went down to Dan O’Connell’s pub one day in Knocknagree. A woman called Eily Buckley saw me sitting down and she took me up and threw me round the floor. I didn’t know what the hell had happened to me, but that was the Sliabh Luachra set, and it changed my life